Hello I''m just another case... A programmer who does both, development and gfx. Unfortunately though, my artistic skills are not just awful.... ( if you wish a good nightmare, tell me to make some gfx for you )

Looking for a teamate??? You got me

BTW: If anyone has any intresting idea about some game or something, and needs a second programmer in the team let me know. But only a 2persons team.

I get all my free software from my mom when she upgrades to the newer versions. She gives me the old disks. I never use any of them for professional reasons, I only play around with them just because I have them. All my compilers I have I pay for in full. Right now I''m saving up $400 for CodeWarrier professional version. I COULD get it for free, I know some people with it. But it''s a program that I need so I''m going to pay for it.

If I have software that has a key on it, I normally hack through it. Even though I''ve payed for it I get sick of having to look in the book for some value or stick in the CD each time I want to play the game. I did this to one of my games because my laptop doesn''t have a CD player and now, when I finish the first level, it just sits there with the timer running down. Hmm, I need to see what I did wrong. (BTW: When I hack a program, I just hack in strait hexadecimal. I have a program that''ll let me view the code, but I have to change it in Hex. I have notes on the binary values of assembly commands.)

I wish I could write music. I''m tone deaf as well as color blind. I can get around my color blindness easily enough by just using primary colors and shading over the top of that. (Or pulling the colors off of a picture or another drawing) But there''s no way to get around being tone deaf when writting music. I''ve tried before to make a song with a MOD editor but it turned out horrable. I''m not even good at getting the timing right. When I finish my game, if I want to add music, I''ll have to pay someone to make some for me. At least I can do all the programming and graphics myself.

In my opinion, some of the best art/programs I''ve seen have been by people who were self taught. As long as you know what to study and keep pushing yourself, I think you can become very good very fast if you''re self taught. In the case of art, someone can easily find pictures to study proportions and see for themselfs the ratio between different body parts. There''s also a lot of books and tutorials which you can learn from. I''ve never been in a class that taught me more then I could learn on my own. No to mention classes often teach things you don''t WANT to learn. (ie: School art class teaches painting when I wanted to learn more about drawing)

I''m a programmer and artist. I''ve always loved drawing. Then I got into programming. Then I got into graphics programming. Then I used that theoretical knowlege to better use the 3d animation and 2d image programs. I remember once I was arguing with this one guy who thought that a UV editor was a part of a program that let you paint textures Then I explained what the variables U and V were. He was rather annoyed at being prooven wrong by a 15 year old

Responding to the original topic:_I''d say I''m about 80% artist, 20% programmer. Can make great ANSI [text-gfx] art [at least me and my friend think so], do some decent composing, and model 3D [kind of stink at textures though.] Basically, I''ll try any type of art on the computer._My programming skills are rather basic [pun intended.] I can understand a language [line Java], understand the code and even write pseudo-code, but I''ve never had enough patience to finish a project [except my Bin-save loader and yes, debugging takes 90% of my programming time.]_I think a good goal for artistic programmers is to make visuals that don''t repulse people. Some people can expect too much from one person. Wouldn''t it be nice if your critics would help you out with pointers instead of saying "it lacks good form."?_As for warez, YUCK! How do you expect newer versions to be developed, especially "consumer editions?" [And why did all my friends have 3DS MAX and infini-D?] The closest I''ve ever come is using a demo version of trueSpace 1 for about 18 months. I finally bought 4.2 for $200 directly from Caligari. [It''s amazing what types of deals you''ll get by subscribing to a company''s e-mailing list!]

I am self taught myself. that is why i left CS, cause my programming level was much higher than the level they were teaching us at. I believe you can teach yourself programming and be very good at it... however i believe passionately differently about art. of course it required me getting a real education in art to understand how important an education really is. I don''t expect any of you who are "self taught" to understand, because I used to feel the same way as all of you. of course anyone can teach themselves book knowledge (ie programming). but reading books on accurate proportions of a figure will not teach you proportions properly. why? i will try to explain some of my reasonings. i know they will not be popular with anyone, but those of you who have not had the privilege of a true education have no idea what you''re missing.

first, everyone has a biased view of their own art. you cannot see what''s wrong with it because you created it. your peers (or others that do not create art) either cannot point it out to you or will not point it out. a book can''t tell you what''s wrong because it''s inanimate. only an experienced higher level teacher (who''s probably gone through the same struggles) knows how to critically look at your work, tell you what''s good, what''s bad, and offer positive directions of improvement. everyone can improve no matter what level they''re at, but they need to know what needs to be improved first. secondly, competition. until you are in a competitive environment with other students and realize how small of a player you, how "natural talent" just isn''t good enough because millions of people are just as talented as you, you cannot realize the focus it requires. third, art history and understanding of aesthetics, how many of you "self taught" artists can honestly say you appreciate and understand the importance of works such as Duchamp''s "nude descending a staircase" or those done by futurists such as Boccioni? how can you call yourself an artist if you don''t even understand art from the 20th century? fourth, experience. experience is the most important part of an education, and without some driving force causing you to miss sleep every night because you are being worked to death, you will never have the motivation to gain adequate experience. all of you will claim you are self motivated, but without professors forcing you to eat, sleep, and breath your work, i guarantee you, you cannot even imagine what motivation is.

as to the comment about the picture that formerly existed in the thread, the claim was not that it used photoshop filters, whether it was drawn by hand or not is not the issue. the issue is that it was pretty obvious the poster was "self taught." I do not want to personally attack anybody here so I won''t tear it apart, I''m just saying that the difference is glaring between someone who is "self taught" and someone who has a "trained aesthetic eye." if it wasn''t, I wouldn''t have been able to discern to easily that this was the case.

I agree with the need to have someone unbiased look at your art to tell you what's wrong with your art. I'm always asking my wife her opinion of my art. Even though she's not artistic, she can tell me what it looks like the character is doing or what kind of expression he/she has. However, I dissagree with most of the rest of that statement. I believe people can look at their own art unbiased if they take a logical look at it and compare it against the model they drew from. You can also look at it backwords which makes it appear as a new image in your mind. Many people are not driven by competition, but if you want to compare your art against someone else's art, there are more then enough examples on the web. I don't see the importance of art history. If you're drawing for fun, or drawing for a game, you don't need to know about the contrast of a soft round model against the hard, square stairs. And anyone who's serious about art can find time to draw. I've been drawing cartoon characters for the last 10 months, I'm almost done with my 5th sketch book and each book has 70 pages. The last book I started on Jan 1st and it's almost filled.One problem I have with classes is that they don't give you enough freedom to explore different styles of drawing. My characters have changed greatly almost every couple of weeks. Everything from feet, eyes, ears and tails. (I like drawing "furries" and how many classes teach THAT?)

BTW: I've seen just as many people who have gone to art school that can't draw worth a darn.

Come on guys...posting comments about pirated software? While I can see that cost may limit an individuals ability to buy the software, sothey must "acquire" it another way, this is NOT the place to be posting that kind of information. This IS a public forum, and many of you have you personal info entered into the system...anyone could easily come by and report you. If you have to talk about this kind of thing (which I can neiter support nor condemn, at least not publicly), hop on any one of the Undernet IRC servers, there''s a few hundred channels to talk about this kind of thing (or so I''m told).

You know, everything depends on what do you think art is. Is this site designed artistically?

As for pirated software. Here in Ukraine finding illegal software 1000 times easier than legal one (no exageraing). It'' being selled on a completely legal markets. 3D MAX costs $2 for example (every CD costs $2). Sellers pay taxes and state likes the way everything goes. I don''t. I as a sofware developer don''t like to see my software pirated, neither someone else''. I want to buy legal copies, but I DON''T have cash to do. I know 0 people who can and buys it. Bad, but it''s true and first people have have money, but if you make legal buisness taxes kill you.

If you think you can make any harm to me or to anyone outside US who uses pirated soft or to illegal sites - you''re wrong. Police just F@#%s that here. See higher.